The Diving Dollar Is a Double-Edged Sword JAMES SRODES, James Srodes is a Washington-based journalist and co-author of "Dream Maker: The Rise and Fall of John Z. DeLorean" and "The Boesky Effect," which is to be published this fall

A HISTORY OF THE JEWS by Paul Johnson (Harper & Row: $25; 629 pp.) Jacob Neusner, Neusner, Ungerleider Distinguished Scholar of Judaic Studies at Brown University, is the author, most recently, of "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Exile and Return in the History of Judaism" (Beacon) and "Death and Birth of Judaism: The Impact of Christianity, Secularism, and the Holocaust on Jewish Faith" (Basic)